Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Tons of work - totally worth it!

Remember the basement? Yeah we had pretty much forgotten about it too...since Josh left for San Antonio and James started school at Iowa State we were rarely even down there. So it seemed odd that Chad and I decided to take on the basement project this fall of course I jumped in with both feet.

The first two rooms that we started working on were literally blocked off last summer. When we took up the disgusting carpet there was even more disgusting tile stuck down with thick black tarry adhesive. The walls were crumbling and well - everything was smurf blue...

So...a ton of drywall, two gallons of paint (Valspar St Francis Hotel), hundreds of square feet of carpet tiles, a lot of elbow grease (including Jackson and Joey who helped me hammer out tiles) and we now have two functional bedrooms in our basement!!

And then there was the kitchen. Thank goodness it was a quick project without as many hems and haws over what I was going to do. All of the beautiful **sarcasm** green plaid wallpaper was taken down wall holes were patched and a new coat of paint (English Rosewood - Dutch Boy) and some new decor was put up and...its now a pretty kitchen! YAY!

**nevermind the mess

Last but not least the dining room area. The first picture was taken during our second tour of the house before we put in our offer. The ceiling tiles were yellowed from cigarette smoke, the carpet was stained and gross. The second photo shows what we found under that carpeting...not much better (you can kind of see the gross tiles in the front bedroom back there too.

So I did some more drywall repair, a nice coat of the same paint I used in the bedrooms put down more carpet tile and polished the woodwork. Right now its a cozy sitting room because its convenient storage for the furniture while I tackle the other side of the basement and bathroom but eventually we will have a pub table and chairs in that area.

The next chapter is to come. My bathroom is pulled apart down there at the moment its mostly painted but the shower surround fell apart when I was cleaning the grout so there are some major issues down there. Just wait there is more to come!